Leave or fully commit? (29M 28F)
Hi, I need some input here. I'm in a long distance relationship with someone who has CPTSD and some symptoms of BPD (but not nearly as bad as other cases I've read about). I'm being pressured to leave my good job in the tech industry to move in with her on the other side of the country. She doesn't want to move where I live because she hates my parents, my parents don't like her, and her parents don't like me. I'm 29m and this is my first relationship.
I originally met her online a year ago and from the start she seemed like the perfect partner. She was very thoughtful and supportive, fun to hang out with, and we pretty much spent all of our time together. When we visited, she would always cook and clean for me, gave me awesome gifts all the time, and originally, she wanted to move in with me in my city. Everything seemed great, like my life was finally moving forward.
Back in september she came to my city to look for a house with me and the cracks started to show. We started having all these fights where she would unleash emotional hell on me over pretty minor things. As an example: I was showing her a collection of goofy rings that I had, and she identified one of them as a "woman's ring." Suddenly she starts demanding that I throw it away, demanding to know if it was from a "side chick," calling me a "cross dresser" (etc), and this continued for almost an hour even after I agreed to toss it. I noticed she was particularly sensitive about any little thing that triggered a fear of me cheating on her (which is absurd), such as my social media apps posting notifications about other girls, which led to me removing those apps.
With most of these fights she would jump right to "thats it, I'm leaving you" and toss all her things (and all the gifts she got me, which she was taking back) in her suitcase to leave. On one occasion she smashed one of her gifts in front of me. Every time this happened, it would send me into a panic and I'd try to apologize and fix things but it would take her a long time to calm down.
I told my parents about some of this and they cautioned me about moving in with her, so I put it off. She went back home and after talking to my parents some more I broke up with her. A few days later she sends me a big apology text and I really missed her so we got back together. When we got back together, I had agreed with her that I wouldn't tell my parents about our fights anymore.
For the first month after we got back together everything was amazing, but when we went back to my city to look for a house the fighting started again and it was worse than before. On many occasions she would scream and unleash a torrent of verbal abuse on me, sometimes lasting hours. There were many incidents when she threw things or broke things. I can't say these fights came out of nowhere, but I think her reactions were a lot stronger than would be reasonable.
She also became hypersensitive about my parents not liking her. After a few weeks of this I silently broke our agreement started going behind her back to talk to my parents again. This led to a few incidents when my mom would message me later about her, and she'd see the message, and I'd try to downplay what I actually told my parents which led to more fighting. My parents encouraged me to get out of it, but I really didn't want to as I was hoping things would be better once we lived together and weren't just crammed in my apartment all the time.
We even signed a lease together but after signing it I started getting panicky thinking about all of the fights and how it was affecting my job performance. This combined with another incident with my mom upsetting her caused her to back out of the lease. Then during christmas she got me a bunch of really amazing gifts and I got pulled back in. I ended up buying her a new car with the understanding that she would move to my city in the future.
About a month later, when I was visiting her, I had felt bad about going behind her back to talk to my parents and lying about it, and I made a full confession. She exploded on me, destroyed my phone and laptop, threatened to sue me for "emotional abuse" (I know this is BS), treated me with utter contempt for several days during which she hit me a few times. She made me feel like the worst person in the world for doing this and like I deserved everything I was getting. Then on valentines day she made me a really nice gift basket and I hadn't gotten her anything because I had forgotten to due to the pure turmoil.
Because of this however she said she would no longer move to my city and I would have to move in with her. This puts me in a hard spot because I have a really good job where I live and I'd have to leave that and try to find a remote job. I kept the relationship going for a few months to see how things went and it was mostly okay but there was a marked change in the dynamic where she clearly held all the power in the relationship. There were a few additional fights about my parents, one where she broke my phone again, and a few others where she threatened to sue me if I went to them again.
As bad as this makes her sound, I need to tell the good parts too. She's very loving and affectionate, goes out of her way to take care of me, and we do everything together. She makes me feel safe and comfortable (most of the time). Before I met her I was developing a drinking problem and I seriously worry about how I would turn out without her. I recently went to my parents again and they helped me break up with her about a week ago, but the hollow empty feeling along with a drinking relapse brought me back to her. She told me she would start taking Abilify to control her outbursts which gives me some hope. We are so deeply attached I feel like I can't imagine living without her and I don't think she would ever truly leave me either.
But the fact of the matter at this point is, in order to be with her, I will need to leave my career to move across the country to a rural area. I have the savings to last a while but I will need to get a significantly worse remote job. I think she will want to have kids as well. I'm very concerned that there will probably never be a way to repair the rift between her and my parents and it will always be a major pain point in the relationship. What does my life actually look like if I go through with this?
I also want to say that if I don't go through with this, I might lose my job anyway due to the effect this constant stress I've been under has had on my performance. Breaking up with her is only going to make it worse, especially if I start drinking again. My old social circle revolved around nightlife and I don't really have any connections outside of that. I'm really worried about where I will end up without having her to fill the void.